Jagged Alliance 2: Unfinished Business

The Good
More Jagged Alliance 2, can't go wrong - or so I thought. The enemies are not really smarter as is sometimes claimed but just follow another routine. Still nice; New tactics on your part are required. First battles are challenging as the enemy will outnumber you and outclass you weapon-wise. After that you get rather showered with equipment. New cool guns. Fun (though few) recruitable characters. Roughly half the game takes place in a bunker which could make for great gameplay, but, see below.

The Bad
Oh my, where to start.

Software: There is no limit to the bugs. Now I hear you say we are used to that from JA2. You are not. The old bugs are negligible in comparison. The game will freeze or crash on you every other 5 minutes, at least on windows XP. I did play from an original CD, but I doubt they were able to fix anything at GOG.

Gameplay: Really short and one-track. Only about 20 accessible sectors. No side-missions, no strategic decisions. Cash is limited, but plenty, time is unlimited (and mercenaries are paid per mission not per day), which feels like cheating since you can spend all the time healing, repairing and training you want. Above ground everything is rather ok, nice challenges, at least two well though out sectors. The problem is below ground. Instead of tactically challenging situations you are faced on numerous occasions with spots where all you can do is turn the corner or move through that door, taking fire. No diversions, no decoys, no alternative routes, no blowing up walls, no decisions to make when to invest heavy gear like LAWs and when to save it (Instead you have lots of LAWs but most walls and doors are immune to them). Realistic? Yes, maybe. Interesting to play? No. Smoke grenades now only work in the enemies favor, that is, he will always see and hit you, you won't, no matter who's in the smoke. In exchange you can sometimes throw grenades at weird angles that did not work for me in JA2. Towards the end of the game it comes down to this: move through door, get hit, shoot back, use regeneration boost you find, rinse, repeat. Occasionally the enemies will be able to shoot through walls (corners), sometimes you can't shoot back. Who gets an interrupt now seems to be entirely random or predetermined. The game seems to intend that you take only one team into the later part of the game but it is easy to use the menus in a way that allow entering with most mercs. If you are prepared for the bugs and freezes that seem to come with it.

Story: Not that important really and basically sound but a few weird elements. Useless blabla emails from Miguel and Enrico. Some dialogue seems nonsensical but maybe that's just me.

The Bottom Line
Don't buy, don't play. First quite promising but then extremely frustrating. Taking the fun out of Jagged Alliance. One time I stopped playing for a few days and the last sector was nothing but "please let it be over soon".